Breaking News: Most immigrants in Georgia are here illegally

From the AJC:

Most of the 953,000 immigrants living in Georgia are in the country illegally, according to an analysis for the Center for Immigration Studies released Thursday.

Basing its findings on Census Bureau data, the analysis said Georgia has one of the fastest-growing immigrant populations of any state. It calculated that 53 percent of the state's foreign-born population — 504,000 people — are illegal immigrants. Only the estimates for Arizona, at 65 percent, and North Carolina, at 58 percent, were higher.

Overall, one in eight people living in the United States is an immigrant, the analysis found, for a total of 37.9 million people — the highest level since the 1920s. The nation's immigrant population — legal and illegal — reached a record of 37.9 million in 2007, it said.

"The last seven years have been the highest period of immigration in American history," it concluded. "Immigrants and their young children [under 18] now account for one-fifth of the school-age population, one-fourth of those in poverty and nearly one-third of those without health insurance."
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Also see article on the study in The New York Times.